If you want people to be let loose, you can't over-control them.

When you take a director off a project, that makes a person feel humiliated because everyone knows it. But we're responsible because we put them in that position.

What I've learned running Pixar applies to all businesses.

For me, the work we did to turn around 'Toy Story 2' was the defining moment in Pixar's history.

People say they want to be in risky environments and do all kinds of exciting stuff. But they don't actually know what risk means: that risk actually does bring failure and mistakes.

Part of being the successful Pixar is that we will take risks on teams and ideas, and some of them won't work out. We only lose from this if we don't respond to the failures. If we respond, and we think it through and figure out how to move ahead, then we're learning from it. That's what Pixar is.

Every new idea in any field needs protection.

With certain ideas, you can predict commercial success. So with a 'Toy Story 3' or a 'Cars 2,' you know the idea is more likely to have financial success. But if you go down that path too far, you become creatively bankrupt because you're just trying to repeat yourself.

You hope to bring your 'A Game' to any game, and of course you do in a final. You hope to bring experience, fitness, communication skills, motivational skills.

I went to Fulham for the project they explained to me - but it didn't really work out. I might have been playing at a high level for the national team, but I was starting to miss those European nights and challenging for titles.

Every flaw you have or lapse of concentration can cost you a goal, so you have to be on your toes every minute of the game.

I've been the captain at Ajax and once for the national team - it's nice and makes you an important player.

Running a marathon is unlike anything I have done. You can recall all those bad weights sessions or the work you had to do in pre-season, but marathon running is worse than any of it, probably the hardest thing I have had to do in my entire life.

If you win, everyone asks what's your secret, when most of the time you did exactly the same in the ones you lost.

As a goalkeeper, I needed good players around me. I needed Nemanja Vidic, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney. It's the same as a CEO.

All things evolve, and European football needs to evolve as well.

You don't need only your strikers. You need your defenders to be on top of their game. You need a midfield to work hard and track back, and I suppose you need a goalkeeper who makes saves once in a while.

If you are in the Premier League or at Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Bayern Munich, you are at an end station.

The Dutch league is not one of the strongest five leagues in the world, or even Europe, and that's why it is difficult to maintain.

At Ajax, we have a certain philosophy that is sometimes more important than winning - the development of players.

We need a solution for European football. You need to help smaller clubs in European competitions get the right distribution of money so they can invest in coaches and attract talent for the level they can play at.

For us at Ajax, it is all about football.

I share a special bond with Ajax. I think we are a special club. And we're known for our philosophy around the world.

A lot of the guys who played in the 1995 final for Ajax had been there since the age of 12 or 13. Patrick Kluivert and Edgar Davids had been there from age seven or eight, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

Personally, I don't think about the things I have won but the things I have lost.

If you have a love for sport, everybody knows the success of Madrid in the '60s, Ajax in the '70s, Bayern Munich, and so on.

As a striker, all you want to do is score.

I'm just not very rock n' roll.

You have to get your motivation from within, and it doesn't matter if you lose in the quarters, the semis, or the final. You must want to have another chance of winning the trophy.

Ajax has always been about homegrown players developed in a small country.

It's great to have people talking about the club again, to reinvent and get to know Ajax again.

I get great respect from the United fans and the directors and the people who are there still when you go there. It is a very warm club, very comparable to Ajax, only they have grown internationally amazingly.

You try and learn from clubs where you have been or actions clubs are taking to grow in certain markets, and that, for myself, is also important.

At certain times, you start to - maybe not lose the faith - but just wonder how long it will take until someone picks me up. I was thinking, 'Is it just me? Do I think I'm better than any manager does?'

Diehards know what Ajax is about, but you always need a new following, and if you are not successful, it is difficult.

You want to build your own team for the highest level, and that happens more with teams that stay together.

A lot of clubs have lost the perspective of what is a football club.

Personally, I would never criticise a player in public.

I've never had the experience of 10 years at Unilever and five years at Coca Cola. But I'm not the marketing director who only wants 25 per cent a year on the revenues. In the old days, you sold something, and you would be happy. At Ajax, we thought we needed more from that than selling a seat and making five grand.

We accept that, in one way now, if you are 27, 28 and still playing for Ajax, you are probably not good enough for the top of Europe because players want to go to the top in Europe.

If I see something right, I say so.

I don't think there was a single United player from 2009 who could say he gave it everything and played well.

I signed for Ajax in 1989 when I was still at school.

I was in two successive European finals early in my career, so initially, you think that sort of thing is going to happen regularly. Then suddenly, it dries up, and before you know it, 13 years have passed before you get your next chance.

Sometimes I miss European football.

Every time I hear that Champions League song, it reminds me of hearing it for the first time in the old Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.

If you go to Juventus, you want to go for longer than two years, and you want to win titles.

I remember, when I was 24, I said 34 was going to be the limit I will play to. But as everyone says, the older you get, the longer you want to go on because it gives you so much satisfaction.

It's always best if you can leave with a good memory.

I accept that I didn't play very well in Italy for the two years. It was lower than my Ajax standard. I don't know why.